I may get a lot of flack for this, but here is my perspective as someone with over 20 years experience as a machinist in the US. Over the course of my career, I have become more than comfortable using metric, imperial, and us custimary units.
For science? Metric is fantastic. For literally everything else - us customary is faster, easier, more understandable, and actually more approachable in terms of trying to actually build something.
Let’s start with simply building something as the first example. Fractions, (and angles relative to fractions) are more intuitive to work with, faster, and overall easier to work with than decimal equivalents. One could easily spend more time trying to measure 1.905 cm vs very quickly dividing 1 into 3/4".
Furthermore, units are just that. An arbitrarily agreed upon measurement. None of them make any “more sense” than any other. If the Royal Society had agreed on a hogs head as a standard unit of volume, we’d likely still be using it.
I may be rambling at thus point. However, my entire point here is that there is objectively no such thing as a superior unit of measure. They are all made up and have uses that they are best suited for.
One could easily spend more time trying to measure 1.905 cm vs very quickly dividing 1 into 3/4".
If the standard is written in Metric, the factory that makes the parts uses metric, and the place where the parts are used uses metric, why don’t they just use 2cm screws instead?
Your argument for the convenience of imperial is that the standard uses imperial. No shit. It would be just as hard to cut something to 0.787" inches if the standard were in metric.
Also the reason metric makes more sense is I don’t need a calculator to convert centimeters to kilometres. You need a calculator to convert inches to miles. AND you have to memorise the conversion factor! What a waste of brainpower
The reason metric makes sense is because its standard, and 90% of the world uses it. Being the odd one out just causes problems in the long term, especially as we move towards a more globalized world.
What is your professional opinion on decimal feet? I had to use such a measuring tape at work, it took me half a day to figure out what was going on with that abomination.
Edit: to clarify, feet were divided in 10 units, not 12, so one and a half feet was at the “5” mark between 1 and 2 ft, not the “6” mark.
Sadly, at that point, you need to know the decimal equivalent (this happpens often with precision measurement) for instance 1/4 is 0.25 etc. I agree that it is horrible for a tape measure style measurement, but it isn’t so bad once you’re used to seeing the fractional equivalent as a decimal.
For science? Metric is fantastic. For literally everything else - us customary is faster, easier, more understandable, and actually more approachable in terms of trying to actually build something.
Americans keep saying this shit as if the vast majority of the world doesn’t use grams for baking, celcius for temps, and cm for height daily - nobody is imposing anything on you guys, but you are going to continue to be ridiculed for using the dumbest measurement system. Yes, some systems absolutely make more sense than others - having even division of all orders of magnitude is a good example of that.
One could easily spend more time trying to measure 1.905 cm vs very quickly dividing 1 into 3/4".
This is purely a skill issue. You’re also clearly being biased by picking a rounded imperial fraction as the basis of comparison, and complaining the metric equivalent is unwieldy. (50mm is 1.968504 inches - oh wow! oh no! how will anybody figure it out?) Of course they don’t neatly line up, they’re not meant to - it doesn’t make working in metric harder because I’m not using both systems? If I need hardware, I have M3 through to M8 for normal screws, bolts, washers, etc. - trying to use imperial is a clusterfuck - they don’t even use the same fucking denominator, thread pitch is not standardised, nothing makes sense, it’s a garbage system.
How many inches in a foot? thats easy - how many feet in a yard?..uh okay a little weirder, yards to a furlong? the fuck - furlongs to fathoms to miles to -… its inconsistent unpredictable garbage because it’s not in any way related to the units above or below it. That’s all WITHIN DISTANCE - good fucking luck if you want to convert that to volume or energy or anything else.
mm > cm > m > km - all base 10. Predictable, consistently divisible.
There is no persecution here - you can use fucking apples to measure distance if you like - but please stop portraying SI units as this scientific conundrum which is incompatible with daily life or professional ease. Imperial isn’t actually any easier, americans are just familiar with it All but 2 countries in the entire world have switched over because the benefits self-evidently outweigh the costs…america acts like using dumb dumb units is a patriotic holdout but it is such an ongoing own-goal.
I may get a lot of flack for this, but here is my perspective as someone with over 20 years experience as a machinist in the US. Over the course of my career, I have become more than comfortable using metric, imperial, and us custimary units.
For science? Metric is fantastic. For literally everything else - us customary is faster, easier, more understandable, and actually more approachable in terms of trying to actually build something.
Let’s start with simply building something as the first example. Fractions, (and angles relative to fractions) are more intuitive to work with, faster, and overall easier to work with than decimal equivalents. One could easily spend more time trying to measure 1.905 cm vs very quickly dividing 1 into 3/4".
Furthermore, units are just that. An arbitrarily agreed upon measurement. None of them make any “more sense” than any other. If the Royal Society had agreed on a hogs head as a standard unit of volume, we’d likely still be using it.
I may be rambling at thus point. However, my entire point here is that there is objectively no such thing as a superior unit of measure. They are all made up and have uses that they are best suited for.
If the standard is written in Metric, the factory that makes the parts uses metric, and the place where the parts are used uses metric, why don’t they just use 2cm screws instead?
Your argument for the convenience of imperial is that the standard uses imperial. No shit. It would be just as hard to cut something to 0.787" inches if the standard were in metric.
Also the reason metric makes more sense is I don’t need a calculator to convert centimeters to kilometres. You need a calculator to convert inches to miles. AND you have to memorise the conversion factor! What a waste of brainpower
That was also part of my point. I am tired of people trying to impose one unit or series of units being superior when they are all just made up.
The reason metric makes sense is because its standard, and 90% of the world uses it. Being the odd one out just causes problems in the long term, especially as we move towards a more globalized world.
What is your professional opinion on decimal feet? I had to use such a measuring tape at work, it took me half a day to figure out what was going on with that abomination.
Edit: to clarify, feet were divided in 10 units, not 12, so one and a half feet was at the “5” mark between 1 and 2 ft, not the “6” mark.
Sadly, at that point, you need to know the decimal equivalent (this happpens often with precision measurement) for instance 1/4 is 0.25 etc. I agree that it is horrible for a tape measure style measurement, but it isn’t so bad once you’re used to seeing the fractional equivalent as a decimal.
Americans keep saying this shit as if the vast majority of the world doesn’t use grams for baking, celcius for temps, and cm for height daily - nobody is imposing anything on you guys, but you are going to continue to be ridiculed for using the dumbest measurement system. Yes, some systems absolutely make more sense than others - having even division of all orders of magnitude is a good example of that.
How many inches in a foot? thats easy - how many feet in a yard?..uh okay a little weirder, yards to a furlong? the fuck - furlongs to fathoms to miles to -… its inconsistent unpredictable garbage because it’s not in any way related to the units above or below it. That’s all WITHIN DISTANCE - good fucking luck if you want to convert that to volume or energy or anything else. mm > cm > m > km - all base 10. Predictable, consistently divisible.
There is no persecution here - you can use fucking apples to measure distance if you like - but please stop portraying SI units as this scientific conundrum which is incompatible with daily life or professional ease. Imperial isn’t actually any easier, americans are just familiar with it All but 2 countries in the entire world have switched over because the benefits self-evidently outweigh the costs…america acts like using dumb dumb units is a patriotic holdout but it is such an ongoing own-goal.
I mean, 1m is ca. 1 step. My dad is farmer, uses that a lot.